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10
MAJOR NATIONS IN A GLOBAL WORLD: BRAZIL
nations. Portuguese trading ships were often commanded by men of wide-
eyed courage and violence, many of whom were
aristocrats
. They seized
ports and forts along the route to India and China.
Cabral most certainly fit the mold of the rough-and-tumble sea captain and
adventurer. On March 9, 1500, the navigator set sail from Lisbon to India taking
a different route than his countryman, Vasco da Gama, had taken a few years
before. Da Gama sailed around Africa, but told Cabral he should sail southwest
to bypass the calm waters of the Gulf of Guinea, off the west African coast.
Cabral did as he was told and on April 22, spotted land that he named
the “Island of the True Cross,” an area in the northeast region of what would
become Brazil. Cabral spent only ten days in the area, continuing to his orig-
inal destination, India, on a journey that was wracked by bad luck, including
the loss of four ships.
Although Cabral had discovered a new land, the Portuguese ignored the
region for thirty or so years. Portugal was more interested in India and other
Asian lands. However, several other European nations eyed Brazil and threatened
to take it by force. The Portuguese were also cashed-strapped, and needed the
revenue a New World colony might bring. Consequently, the Portuguese paid
more attention to the region Cabral had earlier discovered. Traders from Portugal
The landing of Cabral in 1500 in Porto Seguro in present-day Brazil, in a painting
by Oscar Pereira da Silva (1865–1939).